Thursday, June 20, 2013

Central Monitoring System Of India Launched Without Any Parliamentary Oversight And Legal Framework

The dangerous
central monitoring system (CMS) of India has been finally launched as
per various media reports. However, till now no confirmed and
official report has been provided by Indian government in this
regard.

The CMS is an e-surveillance and law enforcement
tool in the hand of Indian government and its agencies. However, the
entire concept of e-surveillance and projects like CMS is full of
controversies. India has no constitutionally
sound lawful interception legal framework.

Both phone
tapping and e-surveillance are done in India without any
judicial intervention and purely at the executive level. Even the law
enforcement and intelligence agencies of India are not governed by
constitutionally sound legal frameworks.

It is only now that the group of ministers has been
constituted
to draft law for central bureau of investigation (CBI) to make it
autonomous and insulate from executive interference.

This is an alarming situation especially when
governments around the world are engaging in limitless and
unregulated e-surveillance. This has forced even the United Nations
to raise
its voice against civil liberties violations by various
national governments.

India has been playing
with the propose privacy bill for long and there seems to be no
intention on the part of Indian government to enact the same. Till
Indian government respects the privacy rights and civil liberties of
Indian citizens, we must use self
defence measures to protect the same.